


Casual Curiosity

by ohsusquehannah



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, yumikuri
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-19
Updated: 2014-05-28
Packaged: 2018-01-09 08:14:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1143646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohsusquehannah/pseuds/ohsusquehannah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ymir has always prided herself on her ability to put up an impenetrable wall of obnoxious confidence and biting sarcasm, but Krista Lenz manages to break through her defenses more quickly and easily than anyone she's ever met. </p><p>Another typical high school AU where Ymir's a total dork who thinks she's the shit, Krista's the sweet and perfect well-rounded student with a secret affinity for tall freckly punks and the Riot Grrrl movement, and everyone is alive and pretty much happy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Ymir shoved her hands in her pockets and nuzzled her face deeply into her scarf, scowling at the bitter February wind.

Fucking Berthold, who had been her ride, ditched her last minute for a chance to ogle his boyfriend’s butt in those stupid padded pants that she thought resembled an oversized sanitary napkin. Reiner was the quarterback on the school’s football team, the Trost High Scouts, and Berthold never missed a chance to watch him get manhandled on the field during practice. Supportive little pervert.

Ymir knew he relished this kind of weather anyway, due to the fact that in normal, comfortable, humanly inhabitable temperatures he had a _little bit_ of a sweating problem. A _little bit_ in the same way that Lake Ontario was a koi pond, or that Joan Rivers may have had a _little bit_ of work done.

Ymir snorted into her coat, relishing this tiny bit of mental revenge.

She actually loved her best friends, and was fully aware that she played the role of third wheel in their lopsided relationship ever since Annie had started dating Mikasa and become increasingly scarce; she only ever really minded that fact at times like these, when she could have _really_ used a priority spot on somebody’s dance card. Specifically, someone with a heated car.

After what felt like the duration of the fucking ice age, she finally reached her run-down apartment complex, stiffly climbing the steps before somehow maneuvering her ice chips of hands into forcing her key into the door and elbowing her way inside.

 _Fuck_.

She may as well have been stepping into a casket; the tiny apartment was colder than a dead guy’s dick.

She hissed a steady stream of curses through her teeth as she cranked up the heat, proceeding to wrap herself in every blanket in the place, then collapsed onto her bed in an angry huff. She'd lived alone with her mom since her father died when she was twelve, but given that she worked an exhausting noon to close at her waitressing job, her mother wasn’t home to see her much.

Nor was she home to keep the apartment from reaching glacial temperatures, she thought bitterly.

She lay there cocooned in quilts and self-pity until she could feel her ears again, then reached for her laptop. She sat up and listened to the hum of the PC making its way slowly into consciousness, then scanned her email to see if she’d gotten any responses to her local job-hunting efforts. She’d gotten fired from her last job at McDonalds after calling some middle-aged pervert a “crusty old fuckface” after he tried to order _her_ as a side. As if she could let him get away with that. If anything, she was a fucking entre, not some dollar menu shit.

As much as she resented having to put on an ugly ass uniform and a fake smile (or in her case, a sarcastic smirk on her best days) just to serve idiots Krispy Kreme or curly fries, she could really use the cash. She’d never been the best at making good first impressions though –-her perpetual bitch face probably had something to do with it—and finding a job proved more difficult than she’d thought it would be. Sighing at the spam and virtual layer of dust settled in her inbox, she clicked open Facebook and proceeded to do what she did nearly every day now:

Stalk Krista Lenz.

Krista was quite possibly the most angelic creature she’d ever met. It was rumored around school that she was actually just another dreary member of the human race, but Ymir didn’t buy that. Not for a goddamn second—the girl was an angel. A cherubim. A fucking saint.

With a natural predisposition geared toward hating stupidity in all forms --and thus pretty much any new person or situation she encountered-- Ymir was in awe of Krista’s other-worldly (or possibly just incredibly stubborn) ability to recognize only the best qualities in a person. With her tiny build and almost opalescent skin, she seemed to be the dark, lanky brunette’s complete antithesis-- and Ymir fucking loved it.

Not that this was the result some self-loathing, deep-seated psychological tendency to seek out somebody as opposite to her own personality as she could possibly get; in general, Ymir was self-confident bordering on cocky. As a matter of fact, most of the time she thought she was the shit. No, Krista Lenz just, uh, brought out a certain amount of innocent curiosity in Ymir. _Casual curiosity_ ; that was it. Nothing more.

Ymir didn’t believe the whole “crush” thing. In fact, she was a pretty staunch opponent of emotions in general (except for anger- there was _always_ room in Ymir's heart for anger); they'd proved to be more trouble than they were worth.

She’d first noticed how different Krista was from the rest of her class at the beginning of the school year, after a remarkably shitty summer filled with repetitive fights with her mother over an _exceptionally_ shitty boyfriend that had come to live with them while he hunted down a place of his own. He’d talked to Ymir’s mother like she was dirt, stayed in all day while her mother worked, tryed to pull creepy shit with Ymir whenever she dared to return there alone, and had no qualms about knocking either of the two girls around.

It was a summer full of empty threats and dangerous ones, so after she’d stuck up for her mother and put up with the scumbag for as long as she could, Ymir had taken off for about three weeks, crashing at friends' places, and by the time she came back the boyfriend was gone and her mother was in hysterics over Ymir’s absence.

A pretty tough summer, like she’d said.

She had to endure the first day of school after a long night of bitter fighting, and she knew she looked like shit; even her friends knew to stay as far away as possible when she had that particular murderous look in her eyes. However, much to her surprise, about half-way into second period she felt a small hand touch her shoulder.

Krista had come up quietly behind her while Ymir had been hunched over in a miserable stupor.

“Excuse me, you’re Ymir, right? Is everything okay?"

She hesitated for a moment before planting her feet and seeming resolutely determined to help.

"I know it’s none of my business, but you looked so upset.”

Her brow was creased in concern and she was looking at Ymir with such a caring expression… All Ymir could do was stare at her, at a loss for words. She couldn’t believe this pipsqueak had been brave enough to approach her, given how intimidating she had intended to look, let alone offer her words of comfort. Ymir didn’t even know Krista knew her name. Sensing that Ymir wasn’t going to reply, Krista gave her shoulder a light squeeze, and bent down to murmur,

“I’m here if you want to talk. I’m Krista, by the way” and smiled encouragingly before she walked off to rejoin her friends.

Ymir was always proud to claim the title of callous bitch, but even she had to respect such overwhelming and limitless kindness in a person. She had never seen Krista say one mean-spirited, minorly rude or even slightly thoughtless thing to anyone. Ever. Not only that, but she was president of the Key Club, the junior class representative, beloved by all, and not to mention majorly fucking cute.

And Ymir didn’t use the term cute lightly; everything about her was adorable, from her round blue puppy eyes and her soft blonde hair to the cute way her faced flushed just slightly when she laughed and the way her nose crinkled when she smiled in a certain— _Christ_.

Ymir had never been one for sappy, unproductive nonsense, or to have much patience for feelings in general, but… she groaned and burrowed her face into her pillow. These gooey emotions were for the weak, she had always believed that. She had pitied anyone who let their hormones compromise their mental clarity. She had sneered at love-struck couples on the bus and in the hallways. She had hooked up a few times with girls at parties, sure, but she always maintained a cool distance so they wouldn’t get the wrong idea. Now here she was, pining over a picture on her laptop screen like some moon-eyed idiot.

_Casual curiosity my ass._

She aggressively shut her laptop, pushing it to the other side of the bed, and shoved her earbuds in. If she just cranked the music up loud enough, she thought, she could drown out these sickeningly stereotypical lovesick teenage thoughts. How fucking embarrassing.

 _Nobody,_ she vowed, _can know about this._

* * *

 

A wrench was thrown into Ymir’s tight-lipped plans the next day at lunch when Reiner slammed his fists onto the table and bellowed, loudly enough so that the far corners of the cafeteria and North America could hear, that this weekend he was hosting a “killer” party at his place.

“My parents are going to Bermuda for their third honeymoon or some shit, so I have full reign over the castle” he beamed smugly, Berthold smiling shyly at his side. “Annie and Ymir, you’re in charge of buying the booze. Armin’s the one-man collection committee, so we can afford more than your usual shitty beer.” 

“Watch it, dicksleeve, our shitty beer has gotten you laid more than a few times, and definitely enough to revoke your shit-talking privileges,” Annie deadpanned, and Ymir grinned appreciatively at her usual monotone snark.

"Actually, I think I owe most of that particular thanks to my irresistible charm and impressively massive football dick,” Reiner boomed, eliciting a collective groan from the table. "Isn’t that right, Bert?”

Berthold choked on the soda he was drinking and blushed fiercely, stammering and sweating enough so that Reiner stopped laughing long enough to apologize, his friends still delivering well-deserved kicks under the table that bounced off his club-like shins.  

Ymir affectionately watched her friends banter back and forth; Annie on one side of the table with Mikasa, who was, as usual, less than an ant’s dick of space away from Eren and Armin; Reiner, Berthold, Jean and his boyfriend Marco on the other. Connie and Sasha were back in the line for second servings of the day’s mystery mush, and Ymir would bet her life that within two minutes of their return they’d be feeding each other bits of ambiguous vegetables and crust, burping and giggling, oblivious to the mildly disgusted looks they earned from their friends. Ymir sighed at the table full of couples (sure, Eren and Armin were single, but they were so close there was a good chance they were joined at the butt too) and rested her chin on her hand, eyes scanning the cafeteria for a certain petite frame and straining to hear that familiar tinkling laugh.

Sure enough, Krista was three tables down, sitting with her friends and laughing cutely over some joke Hannah had just told. Her red sweatshirt folded in on itself as she rolled her shoulders up to her ears, shaking with quiet laughter.

What, exactly, had been funny enough to make her laugh like that? What kind of sense of humor did she have? What kind of sitcoms did she watch; did she like video games, and which ones; did she read science fiction or romance novels; who the fuck was her favorite president?! _Alright, slow down Irkle. The president thing may have crossed the line of normalcy._  

She scrambled to recover her pride and rolled her eyes at the way her heart sped up when she thought of getting to learn even these inconsequential things about Krista, at the idea of memorizing the curve of her jaw, the ridges of her knuckles. She told herself there was nothing abnormal about desperately wanting to be able to go drape an arm casually around her shoulders; to be able to run her fingers through Krista’s silky hair and maybe hold her hand on the way to—

“Yo, earth to doe-eyes!”

Reiner was waving a meaty hand in front of her face, drawing Ymir out of her lame-ass reverie… _seriously, so fucking lame,_ she did her best to convince herself. _Fuck you and this stupid fucking crush, Ymir. You’re supposed to be tough shit, so act like it. Get your head out of Krista’s ass, you sappy fucking--_

“What, exactly, are you staring at so hard that you might combust?”

Reiner did his best to follow her gaze, but she recovered quickly and waved him off with an impatient hand.

“Watching your brain cells dissipate into the air every time you open your fucking mouth, Reiner.”

Annie smirked for a second and Mikasa and Eren actually laughed, but she was too late to throw him off entirely; she didn’t like the mischievous gleam that came into his eyes when he saw the slight blush spread over her dusting of freckles.

A quick scan of the table showed that only Armin had seen exactly where her attention had been directed, revealed by the obnoxiously knowing half-smile on his face. The hyper-observant little dweeb.

“Deflect all you want, blushing bride, but I can read you like the back of my hand. You _like_ someone! I never thought I’d see the day that Ymir Rocks-for-Emotions turned into a day-dreaming romantic. Who’s the lucky lady?” Reiner teased.

Excited gasps and disbelieving exclamations erupted around the table at the prospect of Ymir showing any form of emotion or vulnerability. Choruses of _You like someone?!_ and _Oh my god, who is it?!_ came from all sides as she grimaced and tried to unclench her jaw before she shattered her teeth.

She was going to _kill_ Reiner.

“Please, you can barely read Dr. Sues, beefcake, let alone my mind. You’re full of shit.”

If possible, that only made Reiner grin even wider.

“I can guarantee that I'll be able to get to spill _everything_ come Friday night. You and alcohol never make for a quiet time, as you always seem to conveniently forget. By the third beer I won’t be able to get you to shut up about wutzerface, I’d bet money on it, so just save face now and give me a name.”

Ymir blanched; everyone knew he was right. She had no filter once the third tab had been popped open, not that she’d ever admit it. She made sure her face was composed in its usual stoic mask before retorting,

“Not in your wildest dreams, shit-for-brains.”

Reiner made a face and planted his hands on the table in front of Ymir, whining,

“Come ooooon, Ymir, you could drink a glass of apple juice that was left out for a bit too long and be spilling your brains out. It’s your fatal flaw; the chink in your armor! Save me the trouble of bottle-feeding you beer all night and just tell me who it is!”

His quickly returning shit-eating grin made Ymir’s hands curl into fists, and there was nothing she wanted more than to plant a swift right hook right on the side of that chiseled jawline he was so damn proud of.

Instead, she just yawned distractedly and did her best to look bored, turning away with a disinterested “Whatever.” No way was she going to miss the party of the semester, but she also wasn’t prepared to give Reiner the satisfaction of getting the information out of her. She'd just have to make sure she stayed in control, was all. How hard could it be?

She could still feel everyone’s eager eyes on her, and she inwardly sighed.

It was going to be a _long_ weekend.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ymir comes to terms with that weird buzzing sensation in her chest and stomach. Drama ensues.

After school that day, as Ymir was making her way with Berthold toward his blessedly insulated car, Armin rushed to catch up to their long stride. She heard him approaching before she saw him; as usual, he had on his usual dome-like backpack. It was almost as long as his torso and easily twice as large, stuffed with AP textbooks and the Faulkner or Wordsworth or whatever bullshit he was currently passing off as "light reading". Whenever he rushed, the books would shoomp up and down with every stride, making a loud muffled sound that she'd come to associate with nobody else but him. She couldn't help but enjoy seeing his self-conscious smile or the way that his backpack dwarved his own small frame; in fact, she had to admit that she actually liked the kid more than she could say for a lot of people. With his blonde bowl cut and large, intelligent blue eyes, he had the same dutch-esque look as Krista, and aside from bearing a physical resemblance, they also shared the kind of personality that made them impossible to dislike.

Armin always went out of his way to help others, whether it be with homework, relationship drama, or just to supply a kind word or sympathetic ear. He was always eager to listen and support, and Ymir was really fond of him, though she rarely expressed it. In truth, it seemed she didn’t really need to... the kid had a knack for seeing right through the steely persona she’d constructed for herself. He kid was too goddamn bright for his own good. Even so, it was off-putting to see him without his usual bodyguards—he, Eren and Mikasa were inseparable outside of class. It was rare to see Armin without Mikasa on one arm and Eren under the other, and even rarer for him to ditch them both after school. They always drove home in Mikasa’s car, and the fact that he was making them wait to run after Ymir made her stop fully in her tracks, turning to shoot Armin an inquisitive look. One glance at his face, however, and she dreaded that she knew exactly what he had come to talk about. In place of his usual innocent smile, he sported a mischievous grin that made her immediately suspicious.

“H-Hey, what’s up?”

Though still panting from the exertion, he put way too much effort into making the inquiry seem casual, and Ymir had to suppress a reluctant smirk.

“Don’t _what’s up_ me, Arlert, you look like a proud cat delivering a dead mouse. Go ahead, my stoop’s clear.”

Armin snorted and made a face, quickly retorting,

“Gross, Ymir. Maybe I just wanted to say hello, but geez, if you don’t wanna talk to me, I guess I’ll just go elsewhere to discuss Friday’s guest list…”

By the calculating smile on his face, Ymir knew he expected her to take the bait. Well, she had some dissapointing news for him. It wasn’t going to work; she’d just turn around and catch up to Berthold, go home and wait for the whole lunch episode to blow over. Maybe she wouldn't even _go_ to the party. Then soon enough, everyone would forget about the brief moment when she let her guard down and when Armin, the sneaky little bastard, had wasted no time in figuring out what (well, _who_ , actually) had made her so careless. In _fact,_ she’d rather shove a rusty fish hook up her butt than give him the satisfaction of—

“Fine, I’m listening.”

 _Fuck._ Armin turned and smiled brightly, and she internally berated herself. Immediately after the words had spilled unexpectedly from her mouth, she regretted not having gone with the alternative. But were the two options even really so different?  _Nope,_ she thought, _either way I’m stuck—_   _hook, line, and sinker.  
_

“I just invited a few more people to Reiner’s, and I wanted to see if you had anyone to add.”

Armin stated, wiggling his eyebrows pompously,

“Occupying the prestigious position of booze-money treasurer, the guest list is kind of whoever I choose to shake down... I actually just got back from inviting Hannah, and –I don’t know if you know her-””

He took a slow breath, his stupidly clear eyes almost fucking _dancing_ with sly excitement _,_ damn him, and let the information sink in, pausing for dramatic effect...

“her friend _Krista_.”

Ymir cursed inwardly at the way her heart stuttered at the name, quickly recovering and returning snarkily,

“So? What’s your point? You can invite whoever you want. If this is your roundabout way of”—

She was cut off abruptly by a hesitant tap on her shoulder, and swung around to find Berthold shifting uneasily and sheepishly rubbing the back of his head.

“Uh, Ymir, I-I kinda really have to get home. N-Not to be rude or anything, I’m really sorry Armin, I ju- I just kinda promised my mom I’d be back to help her out with some stuff.”

Ymir had never been so grateful to see the sweaty giant in her life, and felt an overwhelming urge to lean up and press a kiss to his damp forehead—if she could even reach that far. She really hadn’t had a clear idea of where that defense was going, and he’d just saved her a lot of trouble and potential embarrassment. She turned hopefully toward Armin, and noted with satisfaction that he seemed resigned to ending the conversation. She never thought she’d be thankful for such an awkward interruption on Berthold’s part, but here she was. As she might have expected, Armin waved his hands cheerily and smiled reassuringly in an effort to dispel the misplaced guilt revealed by Berthold's nervous stutter.

“No, that’s totally fine Berthold, really. It was my fault for keeping Ymir behind. I really need to get back to Eren and Mikasa before they kill me, anyway.”

She should have known she wasn’t entirely off the hook, however, because before leaving, Armin stood on his toes and leaned to whisper in Ymir’s ear—

“I’ve never seen you blush over _anyone_ before, Ymir. It didn’t take a genius to figure it out. I won’t tell anybody, so don’t worry about that, but that doesn’t mean I can’t still help!”

He jumped back, practically dancing as he geared up to dash for Mikasa’s car, then called back cheekily as he turned away,

“Let me know about the guest list, Ymir! I’ll talk to you tomorrow!”

           Ymir found herself grinding her teeth for the second time that day as she watched him speed away, the little shit. She was angry again, but not at Armin. She knew he only had the best of intentions, as unwelcomed as they might be. It wasn’t the fact that he’d been able to read her so easily, or manipulate her into approaching him about Krista—which she knew she wouldn’t be able to resist doing tomorrow—no, she was most angry at the fact that she _wasn’t angry_. Not at all. Her chest was filled with an annoying humming sensation, and she found herself almost blushing despite the lack of any good reason to be embarrassed. Strangest of all, she was filled with a weird sense of risky, unwarranted hope that she was unaccustomed to. She was really looking forward to getting out of bed the next day; a feeling that she hadn’t had in a long while, and it scared her. Something in the way Armin’s face had practically been an innuendo incarnate when he’d said he would “help” her made her feel queasy in a way that wasn’t altogether unpleasant. As she clenched her fists in an attempt to return to some healthy degree of anger, she knew it was a lost cause. Goddamnit, she was so _pissed_ about the fact that she wasn’t pissed at all! Who was this girl, who couldn’t even work up convincing grimace? She hardly recognized herself. Sure, she felt like she was buzzing with _some_ strong emotion, but a foreign one. One that didn’t feel like anger at all, despite the trembling in her hands that she had only ever associated with fury… if she wasn’t already rattled enough, as she turned away to let Berthold anxiously steer her toward the car, she discovered something that left her completely dumbfounded. She reached up to rub the bridge of her nose in frustration, and felt with a shock… she was _smiling._

_… I am so fucked._

 

* * *

 

The next morning, Ymir woke up with her heart pounding and head reeling from a dream that she couldn’t recall. She’d suffered from nightmares ever since her father died, but this was nothing like past unpleasant wake up calls, where she’d jolt out of bed with a bone-dry throat and sweat-drenched sheets, some unidentifiable cry dying on her lips. For the first time in a long time, she felt well rested and ready to face the day. She dressed carefully, pulling on grey boyfriend jeans, a dark green sweater and one of her favorite hoodies; lacing up her black converse and pulling her hair back into its usual messy pony tail, even going so far as to smudge some black liner carelessly around her eyes. As she glanced at the mirror on her way out, she couldn’t help but crack a self-satisfied smile—she looked _hot._ Berthold honked out front and she heard Reiner’s raucous yelling for her to get her “ _ass in gear!”_ , and she decided to peel herself away from her reflection before they woke up the entire fucking complex. After throwing a bag of chips and a granola bar into her backpack for lunch, she cracked open the door to her mother’s room; she was out cold on top of the covers with her shoes and uniform still on, drool collecting on the pillow she’d _almost_ managed to reach completely before passing out. Ymir affectionately threw a blanket over her and bid a silent goodbye before rushing out the door to meet her impatient friends, bracing herself against the cold.

When Reiner saw her, he let out an obnoxious wolf whistle.

“Clean clothes _and_ clean hair? Damn, don’t make me question my sexuality, baby. I’ve come too far to have a lesbian fuck with my homo mojo.”

“Oh shut up, you shameless fag,” Ymir replied affectionately, earning a grin from Reiner and a pointed, disapproving look from Berthold.

“Come on, you know I hate when you guys use that word. It’s a slur that’s caused a lot of people a lot of pain, I don’t like it w-when you guys just… just throw it around like that. Even as a joke.”

Ymir sighed apologetically and nodded in confirmation that she’d heard him, closing the door behind her as she settled guiltily into the back seat.

“Sorry, Bert, it’s a bad habit. I’m working on it, I swear.”

She’d originally picked it up as a sort of defense mechanism to those who had tried to use it against her, attempting to rob it of its power through casual repetition. It had been cruelly slung at her enough in her lifetime so that she wanted nothing more than to reduce the word into dirt. She tucked words like fag, dyke, and pervert into her regular vocabulary and casual conversations to convince herself, and others, that they were meaningless. When she’d first come out in middle school and felt the terrible sting of the words as they were used against her, scrawled on her locker, and etched into her mind, she’d let those same words control her in the way she’d found she could control them now.

She sort of saw her own overwhelming gayness as a Get Out Of Jail Free card, but not all of her friends felt the same way. Her casual use of the words really bothered Bert and she was making a conscious effort to wean her way off of them, even though she still got a certain amount of satisfaction whenever she used them in an affectionate way that threw them back in her tormenters face. Still, when it came down to it she’d much rather sacrifice that small insignificant comfort than do anything that would risk hurting Bert… she and Reiner knew he had gotten a lot of shit from his family over his sexuality; he’d come to school more than a few times with a collection of unnatural marks and bruises that he insisted were a result of his height and clumsy gait, but she and Reiner knew better than to believe the tales he spun of stumbles and sharp corners. His father was a Class A homophobe and an alcoholic to boot, a toxic combination that left Berthold with a skittish temperament and occasional stutter. Like a record scratched one too many times.

Berthold had never even been hopeful enough to come out of the closet on his own, aware of how his parents would react, but had been forced out cruelly and abruptly the second semester of freshman year. He’d been making out in an short-lived fling’s car after school when the boy’s mother had come home and caught them, then promptly called Bert’s father to let him know that his son was _perverted_ and _disgusting_ and gave hima  detailed account of how he had “corrupted” her _beautiful baby boy_. Ymir grimaced as she recalled those choice words and the horrible morning after that first incident, when Bert had come to school donning a black eye and a broken heart that most of their peers and teachers had been all too eager to ignore. To add insult to injury, the asshole guy Bert had been seeing went all _reformed hetero_ on him, refusing to speak to her friend for the rest of the year. Ymir had held him that night as he cried, had watched helplessly as he blamed himself for the pain he was enduring. It had been hell on earth, and she’d never forget the hopelessness she’d seen in his eyes or how long it took before he started to act like himself again. She would do everything in her power to prevent seeing Bert get hurt like that again.

If anything even _remotely_ good had come from that shit storm of a situation, it was he and Reiner’s relationship. Ymir had introduced them at a party about six months later, and they’d hit it off right away. The football player’s obnoxious confidence and loud, unapologetic approach to life complimented Berthold’s sweet and timid demeanor perfectly. As if to drive the point home, the aforementioned blonde tugged Ymir out of her memories and into present day as he put his arm around his boyfriend in the front seat and kissed his cheek, humbly apologizing as Berthold put the car into drive and started for school.

“S’all right, I know you guys don’t mean anything by it,” he mumbled as he took Reiner’s hand in his own, fixing his stare stubbornly on the road. “I’m just too sensitive.”

“That’s _bullshit_ , you’re perfect.” He looked at Berthold tenderly for a moment longer before redirecting his attention, “and while we’re on the subject of hot pieces of ass, what, may I ask, is the occasion for this Cinderella-like transformation?”

This last question was directed at Ymir, and she shot him a stony glare.

“Your standards are pretty offensively low. I don’t _always_ look like shit, y’know. Keep this up, and you’ll wound my delicate feminine ego.”

Reiner guffawed in response,

“ _Delicate_ and _feminine_ aren’t exactly synonymous with the charming Ymir I’ve come to know and love. But pardon me, your highness, I’ll make sure to slather your ass cheeks with _extra_ butter and jam before I kiss them in the future. Given that you have such _tender sensibilities.”_

Berthold’s reluctant smile in the front seat was enough to make up for Reiner’s grating stupidity, and Ymir snorted despite herself.

“It’s too early for your shit, Reiner. I don’t know how Berthold can take you.”

“With a grain of salt and a generous helping of lube, darling.”

This time, Ymir couldn’t keep from coughing out an incredulous laugh as she watched Berthold turn a deep scarlet. The two continued this way for the rest of the ride, much to Bert’s chagrin, before he dumped them at the front of the school and drove alone to find a parking spot. There was only so much the poor guy could take at only 6:45 in the morning, after all.

Before the first bell, Reiner loped off to find his football buddies, leaving Ymir leaning against a locker waiting for the period to begin. She pulled up her hoodie and inserted a single ear bud, letting the other dangle and hum music into her chest, turning her head and observing the passersby in her peripheral vision. The familiar din of the hallway combined with the comforting hum of Jeff Buckley’s dulcet tones left her mind pleasantly blank as she watched students stroll to their morning classes, chattering happily or walking in silence. A few minutes had gone by when a familiar tinkling laugh jolted Ymir out of her pleasant stupor and tugged her chin abruptly from her chest.

She knew for a fact that Krista didn’t have a class this way — _not_ that she had memorized her schedule or anything; a general idea of it was just kind of inevitable with how hyperaware Ymir had become of the blonde’s presence— but a quick glance she hazarded to shoot down the hall revealed that it was most definitely the petite girl, walking her friend to class. Ymir felt her cheeks warm in embarrassment as she realized that her pulse now outraced the beat of the song she’d been listening to. She really shouldn’t be affected this easily, she told herself, and she hunched her shoulders in an attempt to look (and feel) more intimidating. Not like the giddy schoolgirl her racing pulse was apparently trying to prove she was. The cheerful voice drew nearer and Ymir crossed her arms nervously to her chest.

_Shit, Ymir. Act cool, act fucking cool. She probably won’t even notice you. Why should she? You shouldn’t even care, anyway. It’s just some girl you’ve spoken less than a dozen words to. So what if maybe you haven’t stopped thinking about her in two days? So what if just maybe she’s the reason you put actual effort into your appearance this morning? This is embarrassing, you barely even know each other. You have no reason to be acting like such a fucking dweeb._

Regardless of her frantic internal dialogue, Ymir’s heart was beating so loudly she couldn’t even recognize the song that was currently playing, and she did her best to look casual as she flipped through her iPod aimlessly, every conscious thought focused on the 5’2” heat-seeking missile rapidly closing the distance between them. The particular _heat_ she was referring to was the unwelcome flush that had blossomed over her dark, freckled nose and cheeks as she tried desperately to look nonchalant.

“Morning, Ymir.”

Ymir’s head snapped up in response to the words of greeting, and to her shock she saw Krista passing with a cheery smile directed her way. She opened her mouth to respond, but just as quickly closed it and nodded coolly, not trusting her voice. Her heart pounded and her veiled brown eyes hid the unfamiliar insecurity that flooded through her. Frustrated with her reaction, she watched Krista’s slight form disappear down the hall before turning to rest her head on the cool lockers and groaning quietly.

 _Real fucking smooth, Ymir. That’s the way to win a girl’s heart alright, by acting like a bitch every time she does you the rare favor of acknowledging you. You couldn’t have just replied like a normal person? A smile wouldn’t have killed you, at the very least. Fuck, I am_ such _an idiot._

She continued this way for a solid minute before the first bell rang, and then turned and made her way dejectedly into the chemistry classroom—a subject she was bound to fail, if today was any indication. As she listened to the instructor begin his lecture, she sat back in her chair and miserably relived the morning’s events, pressing the pad of her thumb into the sharp tip of her pencil until she grimaced. No, chemistry was most _definitely_ not her area of expertise.

 

* * *

 

Her bitter internal dialogue persisted well into the day until the bell rang for lunch, when she reluctantly tore herself out of her pitiful reverie. Acting out of habit, she elbowed her way through the usual disorderly swarm of students making their way toward a variety of destinations. Ymir looked around her disdainfully; her peers bumped into each other and rebounded off one another in the chaos as if the grating lunch bell had been a shoe coming down on an ant pile. She thought it was remarkable how much the hallway full of teenagers resembled a swarm of panicked ants, though she honestly doubted many of them had more than an insect-level intelligence anyhow. In a foul mood already, Ymir moved to the side and leaned against the wall impatiently, waiting as the buzzing commotion began to dim and students began to recede into club rooms, bathrooms, and the courtyard. Finally returning to the significantly less hectic hallway, she was blessedly swept by the remaining crowd in a consistent motion toward the cafeteria.

Stepping through the shiny double doors and into the cacophonous room lined with tables and antiseptic white walls, she found herself looking immediately around for Armin. She still wasn’t sure whether she was ready to talk to him or not, and was thankful when he proved to be momentarily absent from their table toward the corner of the room. She couldn’t shake the embarrassment she felt over letting the little dweeb gain the upper hand in their conversation, even if he did have undoubtedly good intentions. She just wasn’t accustomed to sharing her feelings with others, and Armin had wiggled his way into her psyche without even her original consent, the perceptive little mushroom. Not many people had the ability to do that, and she couldn’t help but feel a little bothered that she’d allowed it to happen at all.

Shaking her head and momentarily dismissing her musings, Ymir slung her backpack around in order to root for the granola bar she was certain was crushed beneath the haphazard pile of loose leaf, notebooks and binders that were strewn within the bag. The rest of her friends waited in line to get lunch at school, but she’d never been one for wilted salads, mystery meat, or soggy steamed vegetable cups. It was due to this fact that she was always one of the first to reach their usual table, and today was no exception. She sat down heavily in her usual seat and slung her backpack into her lap with a frustrated sigh, pulling out a thoroughly smashed bag of chips and continuing her fruitless search for the elusive granola bar.

 _The question is,_ she pondered, _do I talk to Armin first or wait for him to talk to me?_

Neither seemed like overly appealing options; the former just proved how much she’d been thinking about it, and the latter put Armin in control. He _was_ in control, though, she supposed... Whether she liked it or not, he was the one who had spoken to Krista and Hannah in the first place, and he was the one who had offered Ymir his help. She sighed again, but couldn’t help the small smile that crept onto her face when she thought about Friday.

_An entire night with Krista, huh?_

Although she was sure to be surrounded by friends and Ymir would most likely only get to talk to her for a short period of time, the prospect excited her nonetheless. If she could just get Reiner out of her hair, it might actually be kind of fun…

“No, Marco, I fuckin told you. I refuse to be within a two mile radius of that piece of shit, so let go!”

Ymir looked up to see Marco dragging his boyfriend Jean in the direction of their table, then heard him reply exasperatedly with a bit of a pout,

“Well, unless you wanna switch schools or drop out, that’s not even gonna be possible. Anyway, I’m just asking you to sit at the same table, not hold hands with the guy. Come on, Jean, for me?”

It didn’t take much for Ymir to figure out that Jean must have gotten into one of his weekly (almost daily, really) fights with Eren. A glance across the cafeteria only confirmed her suspicions as she saw Armin and Mikasa had some unidentifiable figure backed into a corner and were making soothing gestures with their arms, resisting when the person –presumably Eren— tried to escape from their makeshift two-person barrier. The two hot-headed brunettes fought frequently over the most trivial things, a source of constant tension in their little group of friends. Admittedly, they were a motley group in general, full of conflicting personalities and unexpected friendships.

Most of them had begun to hang out together because they had been looking for a place where they could feel normal—their group was composed of every queer kid in the school. Initially they’d just banded together to avoid being harassed; there was safety in numbers. They’d originally intended to be a sort of battle squadron, defending each other from hate and the cruel words most of them had fallen victim to, but it evolved into more than that as they realized how much they enjoyed each other’s company. They sat together at lunch and studied together after school, and as they got to know each other better it just so happened that they got along really well. The longer they were together, and as new additions were introduced to their group, the more they came to realize that they loved each other regardless of their shared sexuality. Connie and Sasha were now officially members of their social circle, heterosexuality and all, and of course Eren was supposedly straight (although her gaydar told her otherwise), and Ymir would laugh now at anyone who tried to tell her that theirs was a friendship of necessity. Which would explain why she only chuckled when Marco finally managed to get a very huffy Jean to sit down and quietly --albeit a bit aggressively-- eat his creamed corn.

She leaned across the table to the freckled boy and mischievously inquired,

“what dumbfuck issue was it about this time?”

He sighed and responded morosely, “It’s hard to even keep track anymore. I think Jean was complaining about a professor Eren likes, and it just took off from there. You know how they get.”

“I’ll bet you anything that it was Professor Levi. Eren’s got a serious boner for him, I’m calling it now. He may talk straight, but I’d bet my life that his wet dreams say otherwise.”

Marco squealed scandalously.

“Ymir! That’s so gross! I think it actually was Mr. Levi, but… ew, I don’t even wanna talk about this. The school’s sloppy joes are hard enough to stomach already.”

Looking up stonily from his half-eaten cup of white corny mush, Jean couldn’t seem to resist inquiring as to what they were talking about and making a half-hearted crack about Marco “squealing like a school girl”. Ymir was about to answer with something appropriately vulgar when she felt a baseball mitt of a hand clap down enthusiastically on her shoulder, successfully knocking the air from her lungs and rendering her silent.

“How goes it, sexy?”

Ymir’s foul mood returned in full force as Reiner’s deep voice resonated in her ears.

“Ugh. Don’t you have a boyfriend to bother or something?”

“Present and accounted for,” Berthold replied as he gently set his tray down next to Reiner’s, smiling apologetically at Ymir.

“Well who shit in _your_ pudding? Did Princess Charming not notice the overtime your fairy godmother put in this morning?”

She rolled her eyes at Reiner’s attempt at humor, retorting,

“The fairytale cracks are getting old, Reiner. For fuck’s sake, can’t a girl look good without getting the third degree?”

Marco chimed in brightly, “Hey, now that you mention it, you do look really nice today, Ymir!”

“Thanks, Marco. See, Reiner? He didn’t even spontaneously combust. Not being an obnoxious asshole can’t be as dangerous as you seem to think it is.”

The stupid meathead just snorted good-naturedly in response, wagging a thick finger at the seething brunette.

“You’re my best friend, Ymir. I know how you operate. You’re wearing _eyeliner._ The only times I’ve ever seen you wear eyeliner were when you were trying to get hired or laid, and I know you don’t have any job interviews today.”

Ymir cursed inwardly at how well Reiner actually knew her. Still, he wasn’t quite on the mark. She wasn’t trying to get laid so much as… noticed? Which really only seemed _more_ pathetic, in hindsight.

“Yeah Reiner, that’s exactly right, I’m trying to get laid on a _Tuesday._ You’ve seen _right_ through me,” she responded sarcastically.

Reiner opened his mouth to respond, but it was then that a familiar blonde bowl cut found its way into her line of sight, and she was bombarded by an enthusiastic greeting from Armin. Mikasa lingered behind him, a cautious hand on Eren’s shoulder as she pushed him down into the seat farthest from where Jean was now perched with a scowl.

“Don’t. Say. Anything,” She heard Marco warn Jean quietly.

It was a good thing they were used to their arguments by now, because everyone had plenty of experience with effectively ignoring them and diffusing the tension. Connie made his usual slapstick appearance with a tray piled with food in one hand, Sasha in the other, and four French fries up each of their noses, and the table dissolved into laughter. Even Eren and Jean couldn’t help but grin with the rest at the couple’s antics, and Ymir was grateful not just for the comedic relief, but for the welcome distraction. Reiner was now effectively sidetracked and preoccupied with trying not to let the milk he’d just taken a sip of escape through his nose, and she had time to exchange a meaningful look with Armin to communicate that she’d talk to him later. The table was practically vibrating now with the soothing back and forth banter and laughter of her friends, and Ymir peeled open the sticky wrapper (she didn’t wanna know) of the granola bar she’d finally found in between a history paper and a shitty caricature of Professor Zoe, and took a large bite, smiling around the flaky oats. She inconspicuously glanced behind her to see Krista taking a seat at her usual table, and almost felt the grains get stuck in her throat as she choked at the sight of the adorable blonde.

Goddamnit, she _had_ to stop doing that.

 

* * *

 

She didn’t get another opportunity to speak to Armin until after school. She was afraid that she would have to actively hunt him down, an idea she wasn’t actively fond of for her pride’s sake alone, but to her relief and surprise, the blonde was there when she stepped out of her last class.

“Damn, you got here fast.”

“I have a TA period for my last, so I just asked Professor Ral if I could leave early. I figured you’d want enough time to talk,”

he smiled innocently at this last statement, but a smirk was all too present in his eyes. Ymir sighed inwardly. There was really no point in being coy with Armin when he so clearly knew fuckin _everything_ that went on with fuckin _everyone,_ _all the fuckin time._

“Alright, fine. I get it. Listen, I barely know her, okay? It’s not like I wanna marry her or anything, I just think she’s cool. I’m just… aw, for fuck’s sake, stop giving me that look. I’m a person, not a kitten.”

Armin might as well have had animated hearts dancing in his eyes with the way he was looking at her, and it was making Ymir seriously nauseous.

“I’m sorry, it’s just, I could never picture you actually liking someone! You always just seemed so… hard, y’know? I mean- don’t take that the wrong way, it works for you, you were just never the type to display affection for anyone, but your face the other day when you—“

“Oi, don’t remind me. And if you tell anyone about any of this, I’m sure you know that I won't hesitate to fucking scalp you.”

It was an empty threat, and they both knew it, but she paused regardless to give him a threatening glare before continuing,

“Listen, you invited her to the party right? She’s coming?”

“Who, Krista?”

Ymir hissed and glanced around anxiously at his careless use of the name, but Armin just chuckled,

“Relax, there’s nobody around to hear us. Nobody who’d care, anyway. And yeah, she’s coming with Hannah.”

“Okay, cool. Thanks. And, ah… I kind of have a favor to ask you. It’s nothing big, and it won’t be all that difficult, but it’s pretty fucking essential to me not making a huge fool of myself on Friday.”

Armin’s eyes widened with curiosity, and he tilted his head to the side –dammit, he really was as cute as Krista—before agreeing and prompting her to continue.

“I really need you to keep Reiner distracted. He’s hell bent on getting me shitfaced, and there’s only so much I can do when he’s set his mind to something. He’ll keep forcing drinks on me till my judgment is about as clear as Sasha’s piss. You just gotta keep him busy for the night, okay? Or get him drunk so that he forgets about it, either way. Think you can do that?”

Armin grinned and gave Ymir a corny salute just as Eren called his name impatiently from somewhere down the hall. Before turning on his heel and running off, he forced his one fist to his chest and the other to his back in what appeared to be some bizarre military gesture and calling out,

“Operation: _Get Ymir a Girlfriend_ is officially go!”

“ _Oi!_ ” Ymir cried out as she felt her face flush at the inquisitive glances that turned her way. She was completely readty to give Armin a piece of her mind, but before she could even gather her thoughts, the little brat had beat a hasty escape. Putting on a convincing grimace and stalking down the hallway toward where she knew Bert would be waiting, she felt a warm sort of anxiety bubble up behind her taught stomach.

_Three days to go._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got a new tumblr and have yet to gain any followers, so if you want, check me out at  
> fujiokunt.tumblr.com.  
> It's not my main blog, but my friends are people who aren't exactly accustomed to nsfw Ereri, Makoharu and Yumikuri pics, so there you have it. A secret blog for my secret life, how exciting.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Ymir gets a make-over and her favorite two lame gays get rowdy in a pantry. 
> 
> Chapter 3: parties + cute girls + cliff hangers = ???
> 
> Read on, find out!

Aside from tending to basic hygienic needs, Ymir had never been one for putting much effort at all into her appearance, let alone preening or plucking or exfoliating or god knows what else. She shaved, sure, when the occasion arose; but seeing as it was early February and the only parts of her getting any stage time were visible from the neck up, even that duty had gone ignored. All this came together to explain why she was currently scowling, half naked and soaking wet, back at her reflection in the bathroom mirror.

It’d been a while since she’d done a self-evaluation, and she was less than pleased at the newly acquired roll of tanned flesh over her stomach that she now pinched between her fingers. Sure, she still had some slight definition, but she was grossly out of shape compared to the six-pack she sported come volleyball season. Sighing heavily, she grabbed a towel and shouldered out of the bathroom and across the hall through her open door, rapidly drying off after the quick shower she’d allowed herself.

A light charcoal sweater and black jeans lay on the bed. She was no fashionista, but Armin had confronted her about her outfit choice at lunch, and when she’d confessed that she had no idea what to wear he’d promptly delivered crisp orders as to what was suitable for the occasion and demanded she get his approval of whatever ensemble she chose. After sending an exhausting amount of pictures via her crap flip phone camera, he had finally been satisfied at this simple choice. She was even wearing a pea coat instead of her usual sweatshirt, something practically unheard of for Ymir. She normally wouldn’t agree to being manhandled or bossed around like this, but Armin was a special case and besides, she’d been in unusually high spirits all day. She’d managed to smile ( _or smirk maybe?_ Anyway, she made sure to offset her cursed bitch face with a friendly wave) at Krista in the hallway, and the blonde had called that she would “see her tonight”.

That’s right, a full _three words_.

Ymir beamed with pride at the memory—three words from an angel was definitely something to brag about. And now she’d prospectively have all night to add to that word count, maybe even engage in a full conversation! Provided that Reiner didn’t sidetrack her with shitty beer and prying questions.

Friday had come around all too quickly, and Ymir shook her wet hair out of her face nervously as she shimmied into her dark jeans and hopped awkwardly until they were snug on her hips. Before crossing the room to grab her perpetual sports bra, she turned to her sound system and flipped through her iPod, grinning in relief as the familiar chords of a Band of Skulls song filled the air. The heavy guitar and clanging rhythm immediately set her at ease as she maneuvered into the bra and then pulled on her sweatshirt, adjusting the loose cowl and humming aggressively along to the frantic music.

She checked the time—she still had almost an hour until Berthold picked her up. Wandering into the bathroom once more, she paced herself as she washed her face and smudged black charcoal around her eyes, breaking for a dramatic air guitar solo. She may have been a little _too_ into it—she banged her head painfully on the tile counter as she was flipping her hair dramatically in synch with the chords, cussing loudly and clutching her head.

 _Shitfuckohmyholydammit-_ a steady stream of curses slipped through her lips as she scowled angrily at her own clumsiness. God, she was such a fucking mess.

 _That’s right Ymir, get it all out now. All your awkward bullshit._ She touched the tender bump on her head and cringed. _Because tonight, you are going to be one smooth operator._

Pulling herself stubbornly upright, she smirked at herself ironically in the mirror, then grimaced again as her head throbbed. Maybe she should keep the head banging confined to the bathroom; with as much trouble as it was causing her in here, God only knows what chaos would ensue if she dared to unleash her mad punk dance skills on the general public.

By this time, her hair was nearly dry, and she grabbed a hair tie from the counter to pull it back in its customary ponytail. Bending over to rummage through her drawers for chapstick, she froze as she caught a glimpse of her reflection. She straightened and frowned at the mirror silently, her already narrow eyes now steely in an expression of harsh contemplation.

How long, exactly, had she had this hair cut?

Years, that was for sure. She’d begun pulling it back when she’d joined the volleyball team in grade six, and the mid-length pony tail had become a permanent fixture ever since. Scrutinizing her appearance carefully, she saw that it was beginning to seem… boring?

_Yeah, that’s it. Seriously fucking boring._

This brought her to a difficult crossroads. She couldn’t stand her hair down, because whenever it brushed her lower neck she was overwhelmed with the desire to scream and punch the nearest surface or person, but she had really never liked it up much either. She’d just become so used to it, so comfortable. She had never taken the time to notice how… _preppy_ it made her look.

Well, not preppy so much as dull.

It was hard to look preppy with Ymir’s dark clothing and perpetual ready-to-fight expression, but the ponytail was coming too damn close. How had she never noticed?! Frustrated, she scratched at a stray freckle on her jaw before tugging the band out and letting her thin brown hair feather down around her face, admiring her reflection and managing to tolerate the feeling for a full seven seconds before huffing and holding it back again. It was too damn annoying, all this hair, and there was nothing to do with it!

She glanced around desperately, and her eyes alighted on a pair of trimming scissors her mother used...

Was she really thinking of doing something so stupid?

_…Hell yeah._

After hesitating for only a brief second, she set her jaw and snatched the scissors from the counter, yanking her sweater over her head and discarding it on the toilet seat before pulling her hair back between two fingers. Steeling herself, she held the blade of the shears just below her hand and applied slow pressure.

She watched, barely breathing, as piece by piece her hair fluttered solemnly to the cold floor.

The first kill had been made in cold blood, and she grinned darkly in satisfaction, seized with a heady sense of reckless independence.   _Fuck paying thirty bucks for a haircut, I’ll do it myself in half the time. Any dumbass can work a pair of scissors._

Noting smugly that she’d successfully managed to cut in a straight line, she decided to get creative; she took a deep breath before beginning to chop aggressively at the back of her head, trimming the sides slightly but leaving them mostly long, not bothering to make it even or at all neat. When she finally stopped to inspect her work, she was pleasantly surprised with the results: it was rough and choppy at best, but it seemed intentionally sloppy somehow, artfully so. It was short enough in the very back so that it barely brushed her neck, and where she’d trimmed less angrily and left her bangs untouched it grew longer to form a sort of inverted bob.

A hack job of a cut, but Ymir thought it suited her. _Aw, fuck yeah!_ She celebrated internally as she shook her head violently and watched her new haircut settle back around her face. It looked like a professional hairstylist had come at her with a lawnmower, and it was pretty fucking cool.

Being impulsive paid off sometimes, she thought, though not all of her spur-of-the-moment decisions had yielded such positive results. She shuddered at the memory of freshman year, when she’d decided suddenly and regrettably to pierce her own septum, thinking it’d look badass; but instead of gaining any sort of swag, she’d ended up with significantly less blood, a nasty infection, and Berthold out cold on her bathroom floor.

_~And when I get the same reaction_

_I know this time it's gonna give some satisfaction_

_You gotta go you gotta go, It's alright_

_But I wanna see you in the see you in the light of the morning--_

“ _Hey!_ ” Grinning from ear to ear and screaming along to the song, she grabbed her sweater, ran across the hall and threw herself down on her bed, laughing loudly and relishing in the tickle of her short hair against the top of her neck. She stuck her legs into the air obscenely, yanking her pleather doc martins on over her jeans, leaving them unlaced, and rolled over to grab her phone, checking to see if Bert had texted her. Sure enough, there was the familiar glowing black-on-green notification lighting up the screen of her shitty phone, alerting her of **1 NEW MESSAGE.**

**_Bert:_ ** _coming @ 8:30, b ready_

He should be here in ten minutes if he arrived exactly on time—which Berthold always did, so Ymir sighed and hauled herself up, pulling on her sweater once more, lacing her boots and grabbing her fraying messenger bag, throwing in anything she might need. The customary party supplies went in: mints, a tooth brush, a change of shirt just in case, her ipod and a set of headphones, and a twenty dollar bill for emergencies or food runs. She shrugged into her speckled black pea coat and looked into the mirror one last time, knitting her brows before walking to her dresser and rummaging through an Anchor Man themed cereal bowl brimming with change and debris. With a triumphant cry, she pulled out a small silver stud, turning again to the mirror to slip it in her single pierced ear and tuck her hair behind, grinning in satisfaction at the intended result. She actually looked… classy.

In a punk sort of way, of course.

This last thought was punctuated appropriately by the grotesque sound of her drawing deep into her throat and spitting vigorously into the wastebasket by her mirror— it may not compliment her look, she thought, but her vanity would never prevent her from hocking a satisfying loogey.

 

* * *

 

With three minutes left before she had to go downstairs and meet her friends, Ymir flicked off the lights in her room and the hallway, shutting the door firmly behind her and ducking into the kitchen to grab a sticky note off the pad. She scribbled a hasty message to her mother about her plans and whereabouts, informing her that she’d be back the next day, and stuck it on the microwave where there was no doubt the working woman would see it when she went to nuke her nightly Lean Cuisine.

Finally, she grabbed the key from the angel-shaped hook ( _bleh_ , her mother still liked to pretend they were dutiful Christians) and locked up the apartment quickly, bounding down the steps two at a time before stopping herself at the bottom and trying to force herself to look slightly less pathetically enthusiastic.

Dialing down her energy however, she concluded as Berthold promptly pulled up along the curb, might be harder than she thought. Another race of adrenaline shot through her at the site of the faded black Hyundai, and she couldn’t help the word vomit that spilled aggressively from her lips.

“Hey, fucktard! What’s the deal? You were almost a full minute late! Either you’re wasted already, or the second coming of Christ is upon us!”

Her voice was even louder than usual as she slid over Berthold’s hood cockily to swing the door open and haul herself into the front seat, rumpling the taller boy’s hair affectionately. She was being more obnoxious than usual, she knew, but that was just how the surplus of energy she was experiencing had manifested itself. She caught herself mid-thought, smiling smugly.

 _Manifested, huh? Who says I’m not smart? I mean shit, I must be some kinda wordsmith. Maybe this_ is _a religious experience after all._

Berthold was currently blustering out a response, and it took a minute for Ymir to register that he had been speaking.

“Sorry, what? I just had the smartest fucking”—

She realized with a start that he still hadn’t put the car in drive and was staring at her with a strange expression, a hot blush creeping up his face.

“What, do I have snot hanging out of my nose?”  

Berthold coughed self-consciously and looked away quickly, stammering, “N-no! I was just saying, I mean… what did you do to your hair?”

She was a bit put off by the question, but quickly kicked the bit of self-doubt that was creeping up on her right in its sorry ass. She didn’t need his approval, she reminded herself. Responding a little too enthusiastically to be completely natural and thumping Bert smartly on the back, she laughed,

“Isn’t it obvious?! I hacked it all off. Well, more like gave it a much needed trim. Like circumcising a penis or some shit.”

She guffawed again at her own dirty train of thought and looked eagerly for the customary grimace from Berthold in response to her lewd remark, but was surprised to see that he didn’t even flinch, instead continuing to stare at her disconcertingly.

“Well shit, it doesn’t look that bad…” she muttered. She couldn’t help but feel slightly wounded by Berthold’s silence, no matter how confident she may have usually been. He was one of her closest friends, after all; wasn’t he under some sort of obligation to stroke her ego?

At these words, Berthold seemed to snap out of whatever trance he had slipped into, exclaiming,

“Ah- n-no! I was trying to say—not that,” If possible, he managed to flush an even deeper scarlet as he said quietly, “Actually, I was just thinking that you look r-really… you look really beautiful, Ymir.”

The brunette felt the blood rush to her face as she realized what he was saying. That hadn’t been what she was fishing for at all! _Hot_ , she was comfortable with _. Sexy, bangin’, handsome--_ always. But… _beautiful?_

 

“Just drive, idiot.”

 

* * *

 

  
They arrived at Reiner’s a solid forty minutes before the first guest showed: this being one of their rare _official high school parties,_ it was considered distinctly unhip to show up before nine. Berthold and Ymir got mother-of-the-bride type passes, being the best friend and boyfriend of the host; which is how they found themselves roped into moving kegs from the car to the kitchen, distributing red solo cups in surplus from the pantry to haphazard towers on the counter.

“Oi, bert! Take my picture! Look, it’s the leaning tower of booze-a!”

She mimed holding up a distinctly lopsided stack of cups, pressing two hands to the air in an unconvincing illusion as the taller male reluctantly pulled out his iPhone and documented the moment. He chuckled half-heartedly at the girl’s antics.

“Ymir, that was a terrible joke.”

“Yeah?! So’s your relationship.”

Reiner snorted from where he was leaning against the counter and grabbed hold of the longer pieces of hair framing Ymir’s face, pulling her down into his broad chest.

“Forgive us if we’re not mortally wounded by that, but it’s really hard to be offended by anything you say when you look so fucking adorable.”

Reiner had been preening like a mother hen over Ymir’s new look ever since they’d arrived, and she already felt like barfing right down his stupid fucking too-tight polo. The preppy jock.   
She swung her arm around and landed a swift punch on his jaw, successfully bruising him (or just startling him) enough to worm her way free of his obscenely strong grip.

“Fuck off. You won’t think I’m so adorable when you’re down a pair of balls.”

The meathead just chuckled, pressing a hand to his jaw and putting on an exaggerated show of pain, moaning and decrying her violence dramatically. After a minute or so and another stream of insults from Ymir, he finally grew tired of the act, abandoning his crusade to make her miserable and moving on to bother Berthold to kiss his _boo-boos_.

If Ymir hadn’t been gagging already, she sure as hell was now.

She hurriedly ducked out of the kitchen, away from the nauseating display of affection, and into the living room where she threw herself down on one of the stuffy leather armchairs so characteristic of Reiner’s hunting lodge-style home.

Of course, it was no sooner than her ass had touched the cushion that the doorbell rang grandly.

Groaning, she hefted herself back up to bound to the door, throwing it open with a flourish and bowing to allow the guests in. She didn’t bother to note who it actually was, assuming it would be one of the majority of people she couldn’t give less of a shit about, and swept a hand in the direction of the living room without hazarding a glance in their direction.

“ _Welcome_ to the Braun Manor. Please, _do_ come in.”

She said this with the terrible inflection of a snooty aristocratic butler, the careless performance flowing from her thoughtlessly out of second nature. There was a reason she and Reiner got along so well, after all; though she’d never admit to having anything in common with that drama queen. She was still bent over grandly, arm extended, when an adorable giggle made her head snap up and a flush color her cheeks. _You’ve gotta be kidding me._

“Hey, Ymir! Sorry we’re a little early, but Hannah lives just down the street.”

The exact blonde she’d been embarrassingly fixating on for the past week now beamed up at her, looking as angelic as ever in a white sundress and boots, her hair tucked behind one petite ear and delicate silver earrings brushing against her pale neck. Ymir tried to collect herself as she looked away from those bright blue eyes in utter embarrassment. She’d been there for all of half a minute, and the taller brunette had already managed to make a total fool of herself. So much for playing it cool. She was an expert in dealing with unwanted emotions, however— she’d learned from experience that the best option by far was to ignore them completely and pretend that they didn’t exist.

Easily composing her face into its default sarcastic smirk, she opened her mouth to greet Krista smoothly in return, but was interrupted by a sudden enthusiastic outburst from the smaller girl.

“Wow, I love what you did with your hair! It looks so cool!” Krista clutched Ymir’s arm excitedly, practically bubbling over as she exclaimed, “Seriously, oh wow. You look great, Ymir!”

To her utter chagrin, Ymir felt another rush of heat climb her neck and betray her stoic image as she ducked her head, hurriedly thanking the sweetly smiling blonde.

She’d only meant it as a friendly compliment, Ymir knew, but her body didn’t quite agree with her mind as a frantic buzzing sensation blossomed in her chest.

_She thinks I’m cool._

Quickly collecting herself and attempting magnanimously for a final time to recover, she closed the door then swaggered ahead, beckoning the two girls to follow her. She walked with her shoulders thrown back, trying like hell to gather her usual cockiness, before leading them into the kitchen and turning to shoot them what she hoped was a casual grin. She took a cleansing breath before beginning,

“So this room through here, as you can see, is our watering hole for the night. Luckily, Reiner looks like a fifty year old and Annie has a face that survival instinct prevent anyone from saying ‘no’ to, so they managed to get us a fuckload of alcohol.”

Hannah clapped her hands excitedly, her auburn pony tail swishing as she hopped up and down.

“Oh my gosh, that’s so much! How could anyone _ever_ drink that much!? This is my first keg party, you know. It’s so exciting!” Here she trailed off, looking suddenly melancholy, “If only Franz could have come…”

Krista placed a comforting hand on her friend’s shoulder and smiled sympathetically, inclining her head to look up at Ymir.

“Franz is Hannah’s boyfriend. He got shipped off to military school this year, so he’s only home for holidays and breaks.”

Hannah let out an Oscar-worthy sob, exclaiming, “Don’t remind me, you jerk! My heart breaks a little bit more every time I hear his perfect name!”

Ymir did her best to repress a snort at the obvious melodrama, watching in amusement as the two girls bantered back and forth. She couldn’t help but notice the stray hair that kept falling into Krista’s eyes, causing her to send a stream of air upward from her lips in irritation every time she nodded or shrugged. Ymir was faced suddenly with an overwhelming desire to reach out and tuck it delicately behind her ear, even as the blonde was invested in listening to her animated friend, pursing her lips attentively and crinkling her eyebrows in the most adorable way. She had a pale freckle right at the corner of her lip that disappeared into the tiny wrinkle that formed whenever she smiled or laughed, and Ymir was surprised to notice a small scar stretched taut and white across the left of her jaw. She cringed inwardly at the prospect of Krista in any sort of pain, her hands curling subconsciously into protective fists.

She was concentrating so single-mindedly on these little -- _and of course obvious to any casual observer,_ she assured herself-- details that she nearly jumped when Reiner and Berthold stumbled out of the near-by pantry, panting anxiously and looking rather suspiciously red and disheveled.

 _Christ_ , _already?_

Ymir pressed an embarrassed hand to her face as Berthold fled the kitchen and Reiner made his shameless greetings. If the two were going at it this early in the night, even while their judgment had yet to be impaired by more than hormones, it was sure to be an eventful evening. The two flustered guests took it like champs, smiling cheerfully at their host and thanking him enthusiastically for having them over, accepting reluctantly the drinks that were promptly shoved into their hands.

“Drink up ladies! This is gonna be a night to remember! Or rather, a night to forget…”

He snickered conspiratorially and winked at them before chugging what was in his own cup and slamming it on the counter and pumping a thick fist into the air.

“Let’s get wasted!”

Ymir groaned and rolled her eyes. “Holy shit, Reiner, it’s not even half-past nine. Slow down or you’re gonna die of alcohol poisoning before the party starts.”

“Whatever, Emmy. You’re just bitter ‘cause you’re a lightweight.”

Ymir scowled at his use of the grotesque nickname she so despised, quickly retorting with one of her own, “Listen _Rein-Cloud,_ I’m certainly not gonna shed any tears over the fact that I’m not a human dump truck like you. I swear to god, you could absorb the alcohol content of an entire fucking keg in just one of your pepperoni nipples.”

She heard a strange squeak to her left and looked over to see Krista with a small hand pressed against her mouth, muffling quiet laughter. A surge of pride flowed through her at the realization that she’d been the one to make the girl laugh, and her foul mood evaporated immediately at the sweet sound she’d grown so fond of.

Good humor returned, she threw an arm around Reiner’s shoulder and gave him an affectionate noogy, admonishing finally,

“Alright, I think I’ve made my point. Now take your titan-like BMI and go find your boyfriend before he has a stroke.”

The muscular blonde looked like he wanted to say something else, but he quickly gave in, his Good Boyfriend instincts taking over as he prioritized finding his anxious companion and making sure he wasn’t having one of his frequent panic attacks or drowning in his own sweat or whatever the fuck it was Berthold did when he bolted from a potentially awkward situation. Before Reiner left, however, he reached over and gave a final loving yank to the ends of Ymir’s hair, causing her to curse loudly. He quickly dodged her retaliating blow and ducked out of the kitchen, a deep chuckle resonating in his beefy chest.

That left Ymir standing alone in the small room with Krista and Hannah.

To her great concern and in an extremely rare turn of events, she found herself struggling to come up with something to say. Despite her callous, antisocial façade, conversation had always come easily to her --albeit often being no more than a series of sarcastic jokes and observations-- and the frequent silences she surrounded herself in were not from a lack of something to say, but a lack of interest.

 _Well,_ she was _definitely interested now_ , but her words seemed to have gotten jammed on the way out. She felt like she’d need an auger cable shoved down her throat before she’d unclog and manage to say something even coherent, let alone witty or interesting.

Luckily, Krista either didn’t notice or chose to ignore her discomfort, intoning cheerily,

“I’m really happy you thought to invite us, Ymir. It was really sweet of you—it’s been a long time since we’ve been asked to a party.” She chuckled good-naturedly, “Apparently, people seem to think that being on the student council makes you either a cop or alcohol-intolerant.”

She looked as if she was waiting for a characteristic sarcastic response from her quiet counterpart, but Ymir hadn’t quite gotten past the first half of the sentence, surprise quickly slipping into confusion across her freckled face.

“I- ah, what do you mean invited you? That was Armin, not me.”

“Well, yeah, but he said it was your idea. You didn’t want us to feel left out.”

Ymir laughed nervously, pressing a palm to the back of her neck. “Oh, yeah, that.”

_Armin, you little shit._

She continued, suddenly self-conscious, “I’m sure Reiner woulda wanted you here anyway, so… I mean, everyone likes you guys, after all.”

The two giggled and Krista smiled appreciatively at Ymir, causing her stomach to flip uncomfortably as her line of sight shifted from the adorable blonde to a slightly over-ripe banana resting in a bowl on the counter—anything to keep from being read like a book by that perceptive blue gaze. She was concerned that once again they would slip into awkward silence, when the brunette was struck with sudden inspiration.

“Hey! Everyone should start arriving any minute, so you guys wanna help me pick out what music to put on?”

At their enthusiastic confirmation, the three headed out of the kitchen and into the living room once more, Berthold and Reiner still nowhere to be seen.

“I, uh, don’t know if you’ll like anything on my iPod.”

Shrugging happily, Krista reached out a tentative hand toward the device, shooting Ymir a questioning look. Nervously, the taller brunette passed off her prized and most personal possession, biting her lip as the blonde scrolled through her artists. She got down on her knees to adjust the sound system as she tried to ignore the strangely intense look of concentration on Krista’s face, busying herself fiddling with the volume and input. She looked up curiously as she heard a squeal of excitement from behind her and saw Krista bounding over to crouch next to where she rested.

“You like Bikini Kill?!”

Confused by the sudden unwarranted enthusiasm, she cocked an eyebrow, responding with a tentative, “Uh… yeah?”

“Holy cow, Kathleen Hanna is, like, my idol! And you have all of their EPs, wow!”

Ymir was silent for a long moment, a shocked look on her face, before breaking into quiet incredulous laughter. Pouting cutely, Krista crossed her arms, whining,

“What? What’s so funny?”

“Nothing, it’s just— you can’t say something like that in that voice! And I never exactly saw you as exactly the Riot Grrrl type.”

“Well I’ll have you know that I am _exactly_ the Riot Grrrl type. Or at least, I’ve always wanted to be. You can like this kind of music without wearing combat boots and black all the time, you know.” Krista poked Ymir playfully on the cheek, and it was then that the darker girl realized just how close they were, her body once again betraying her as her ears reddened and she grew immediately flustered.

Hurrying to put distance between them in their awkward crouched positions, she lost her balance and fell backwards, landing squarely on her butt.

“Shit!”

The blonde pressed a hand to her mouth again, trying not to laugh at the shocked fury on Ymir’s face.

“Oi, Lenz, it’s not funny!”

Shaking her head and apologizing through breathy laughter, the smaller girl reached down to help her new friend back up before plugging in the iPod and cranking up _Rebel Girl_. Brushing herself off indignantly, Ymir stood and rubbed her ears, willing them to cool down before extending a hand to where Krista still crouched next to the sound system, pulling her up and carefully ensuring to quickly let go. It would be _just_ like her to forget to stop holding the smaller girl’s hand and make everything weird.

Because, she had just noticed, holding Krista’s hand felt pretty fucking great.

Looking around, she saw that Hannah had lost interest a while ago and was now perusing Reiner’s book shelf across the room. The only one who had seen her embarrassing spill was Krista, she thought with relative relief. As if reading her thoughts, the aforementioned girl giggled, winking devilishly up at Ymir.

“Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me.”

It was entirely possible, she realized, that Krista wasn’t quite as angelic as Ymir’s projected mental image of the girl had made her out to be.

Somehow, however, she couldn’t quite bring herself to mind this new discovery… if anything, it just made her want to know more about this strangely compelling person who seemed to surprise her more with every word.

She was brought back to the moment suddenly by a small hand on her wrist and the petite blonde tugging her resolutely toward the kitchen. Turning to smile at her innocently, Ymir could have sworn she saw a wicked gleam in those wide blue eyes.

“You could probably use a drink.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long, jeez. It's been such a crazy month. Senior year and college apps are eating me alive.
> 
> (also, I was so happy to finally get to write a little Krista. she's just so cute, I can barely breathe)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to dump this here and edit later, so feel free to let me know if you find any glaring errors. Sorry it's been so long... I have no excuse. I just can't make up my mind on any characterizations of Krista, I literally love every headcanon I come up with! I'm finally kind of happy with the baby development I've got going on here though, let me know what you think.
> 
> Anyway, chapter summary: party, party, fist fight, party, Armin, party, self-indulgent mush, hangover. Enjoy.

“...so I told him he could tek his stupid milkshake and sh’ve it up his ass!”

Krista was doubled over, hiccupping loudly through her laughter. Above her, Ymir stood gesturing violently with her hands, thrusting an accusatory finger in the air and waving it in righteous justice, slurring slightly and dramatically recounting the war stories of her fast food career.

The night had gone on and one drink had turned into two, then three, then four. Ymir had been so worried all week about Reiner being his usual nosy asshole self, but Armin --as promised-- was doing an excellent job of keeping he, Eren, and Jean distracted by goading them into an epic Olympic-worthy series of drinking games. In reality, the big lug was really too preoccupied with his role as the gracious host to spend much time bottle feeding or harassing Ymir anyway. Yet, at least.

The night was still young, she thought grinning.

Despite her school-hour insistence that she’d remain sober enough throughout the night to guard her embarrassing secret, her will-power had crumbled the second that same Embarrassing Secret first offered her a drink. She was half convinced that the past few hours had been a dream; that she was still napping and Berthold’s horn would jolt her out of her reverie any moment to alert her they were going to be late for Reiner’s party.

_Shit, I’m thinking in fucking clichés again._

At least this time she could blame the substantial amount of vodka and beer in her system for her gross-ass lovelorn musings.

She just legitimately couldn’t understand why Krista was willing to spend so much time talking to her; why she had consistently laughed at Ymir’s increasingly stupid and typically crude jokes, or why she tolerated Ymir tripping over her own tongue every time she made the mistake of looking directly into Krista’s perfectly adorable face.

She had learned from experience that the fastest way to get to thoroughly know someone in a thoroughly short amount of time was through the magical confidence-boosting, inhibitions-sapping properties of alcohol, but this was still more than she’d ever dared to hope for. Besides, Krista had literally had four cups of beer. She should not reasonably be this tipsy; but as Ymir had already finished teasing her about, she did happen to have the body mass index of a toy poodle.

Not that Ymir minded. Because of Krista’s small frame, she was constantly forced to smile and chat upwards at Ymir on her tiptoes whenever she wanted to be heard over the din of the party. It was almost sinfully endearing.

“Oh-kay, ummmm, my turn. What do y’think of She and Him?”

One thing Ymir noticed quickly was that Krista almost always refused to raise her voice over its usual enthusiastic lilt. Even in the obnoxiously loud room, she opted instead to tug at the ends of Ymir’s freshly shorn hair to bring the taller girl’s ears closer to her level whenever she had something particularly long-winded to say, or the din got too loud for her voice to carry. It didn’t bother Ymir like it had when Reiner had done it antagonistically earlier in the evening, and (although she was loathe to admit it) she couldn’t help but crack an embarrassingly goofy smile whenever she was forced to stoop by those stupidly small hands and their persistent but gentle tugging.

“Shit, I d’nno, I haven’t listened to any of their newer stuff. Zooey DeChanel was always a little too, mmm,” She furrowed her eye brows in thought before cocking her chin in the other’s direction, “cutesy for me, I guess.”

Krista gasped in mock horror, and a hand shot out to clutch dramatically at Ymir’s sweater. Her normally round and jovial blue eyes narrowed menacingly and she leaned closer toward the other girl’s face, her expression almost eerily serious as she deadpanned somberly in a terrifyingly quiet voice,

“There is _no such thing_ as _too cute_.”

She managed to maintain the dark façade for a moment longer –long enough to make Ymir start to get genuinely freaked out—before collapsing into giggles and burying her face in the fabric of the taller girl’s arm. Ymir couldn’t resist chuckling along with her after recovering from the initial shock of Krista’s unexpectedly macabre sense of humor, and tried to hide the blush that immediately rose to her face at the feeling of Krista’s warmth against her skin.

Jesus, this chick was _really_ full of surprises.

Of course, she guessed she probably had to factor in the alcohol and its influence over the girl’s usual personality. She doubted that Krista was this touchy sober; she just seemed like an affectionate drunk. And an overwhelmingly cheerful one. Not that that was really so rare, but Ymir was happily surprised nonetheless at the free flow of conversation Krista initiated—and the reason she had been able to get over her annoying nerves so quickly.

In fact, she was finally starting to feel like herself again. Minus the occasional unbidden giggling and blushing and stuttering and… well, shit. She was starting to feel more like her usual asshole self again, at least.

She guessed that _technically_ they were still just acquaintances, considering they’d only had their first real conversation that night, but she couldn’t help but feel like she could already consider Krista a friend. There was just something about her that was so genuine that even a person as snarky and cynical as Ymir couldn’t help but want to open up to her . . .

_in more ways than one._

She tripped mid-sentence, flushing and receiving a curious look from Krista before passing it off as a cough and determinedly continuing on about whatever shit she was passing off as civilized conversation.

_STOP IT, you pervert. Now is not the time._

Of course, there were a few easily explicable reasons she might have felt so weirdly at ease around the blonde. For one, there was the small fact that Ymir had been regularly cyber-stalking Krista for the past month or so . . . but that was beside the point. Totally, completely beside the point. In fact, she would prefer to pretend that hadn’t happened at all. Ever.

Anyway, it was more likely that the ease and comfort she felt around the smaller girl was an ordinary result of the effect that Krista tended to have on people. She was a fucking angel, after all. How could anyone feel uncomfortable with a fucking angel smiling at them? _Nobody, that’s fucking who._

Aside from the other girl’s instinctive kindness and infectious laugh and all that good stuff, Ymir was learning that Krista was just really fucking _cool_ in general. Way cooler even than she’d given her credit for.

Because Krista was popular, an alarmingly good student, and dressed like she was straight out of Seventeen (precious sparkly hair bows included), Ymir had kind of guessed what sort of shit she’d be into. The usual, really. Top 40s music, MTV, Gossip Girl… not that any of those were at all bad things, just topics that didn’t particularly pique her interest. Like, at all (although she’d grudgingly admit that she had a damning soft spot for Girl Code. The show was fucking comedy gold, and she’d cold clock anyone who said otherwise).

In reality, Krista had an absolutely schizophrenic taste in music-- one that happened to mirror Ymir’s exactly. Any artist she named, be it Ramshackle Glory or Jeffree Star, Krista had listened to at least once and had an opinion on. She was an incredibly bizarre combination of adorable and badass that kept throwing Ymir off balance, and she loved it more than she was willing to admit.

They argued heatedly over more than a few subjects and genres (Krista thought techno was overrated, Ymir thought folk punk was pretentious), but always ended up laughing and conceding to the other’s point or moving on. Which, it should be said, was _extremely_ rare for Ymir, who happened to be more than a little stubborn-bordering-on-abrasive when it came to music taste; in fact, this odd change actually might have concerned her if everything wasn’t slightly fuzzy from the straight vodka she was sipping on, and she wasn’t so goddamn distracted by the smaller girl’s fucking precious smile.

Their topics of conversation jumped from music to jobs to hobbies; the surrounding din grew into a buzz; couples began retreating into whatever empty rooms they could find, and before the two knew it, it was already past 1:30. Krista was following up Ymir’s numerous fast-food business horror stories with a few of her own equally disgusting --and hilarious-- experiences with babysitting, when Ymir felt a familiar beefy hand come down on the top of her head.

_Shit._

She swatted it off quickly and ducked out of the way of the drunken bear hug she knew was coming, causing Reiner to stumble and catch himself just coming short of falling headlong into Krista. He let out a high-pitched whine as he righted himself, slurring,

“Awww, Emmy, don’t be a bitch. I just wanted to say h’llo!”

Damn, the big donkey was even more shitfaced than she’d thought he’d be.

Ymir knew she was slightly drunk too, but she was definitely sober enough to see that Reiner was way past his limit. Maybe Armin had done too good of a job distracting him.

From the looks of it, he was two shots of distraction away from blacking out with his head in the toilet.

A little clumsily, she plucked the red solo cup from Reiner’s hand and held it far out of reach, kicking him swiftly when he whined and grabbed to retrieve it.

“Oh hell no, you’ve had enough.”

“But Emmyyyy, s’not even late yet! B’sides, I kicked Eren’s and Jean’s asses. P’ssies can’t hold their li’cker fer shit.”

Exasperated, Ymir glanced back to where, sure enough, Eren was already passed out in Armin’s lap and Jean was singing loudly and extremely off pitch into a bright red Marco’s ear. Ymir could see why the kid was such a tomato; of all songs, Jean was crooning “I Wanna Sex You Up” while Mikasa and Annie watched with their eyes practically rolling out of their sockets cuddled on the couch. She would have been in hysterics if she wasn’t so pissed at having she and Krista’s conversation interrupted.

Angrily, she swung back to Reiner to chew him out, only to find him with a muscled arm slung over Krista’s delicate shoulder, the latter listening with a polite smile as he slurringly introduced himself. Immediately, Ymir bristled with unbidden jealousy.

“Emmyyyy, I don’t remember you h’ving such cute friends!” He turned to Krista and gave her a sloppy wink. “Did you even get ‘nything good t’ drink? She’s been hogging you all night, y’didn’t even get to play beer pong w’th us! I coulda shown you the ropes.”

Ymir gritted her teeth as she watched him drunkenly attempt to flirt, biting out, “Reiner, excuse me for fucking interrupting, but don’t you have a _boyfriend_ to annoy?”

“Boyfrrr-” The blonde stared at her hazily for a moment before blinking and grinning, spinning away from Krista like some demented hulk-ballerina hybrid, crying out excitedly, “Ohhh, Bertlll! I d’nno where he is! One second he w’s talkin’ to Armin, now I d’nno…”

He looked around for a second longer before suddenly cupping his hands around his mouth and bellowing his boyfriend’s name so loudly that Eren rolled off of Armin’s lap with an alarming thud, causing Jean to halt his serenade in order to guffaw loudly, falling on Marco and almost knocking him sideways. At the same time, a loud bang came from the nearest closet as the door swung open and Sasha and Connie tumbled out, cursing and coughing violently with a joint hanging from their fingertips (she knew for a fact that Reiner would kill them in the morning for smoking inside, but she couldn’t be assed to care at the moment and everyone else was too hammered to notice).

The party had been slowly starting to mellow out, but Reiner’s bellow had been like kicking an alcohol-soaked hornet’s nest. A few more couples and friends stumbled out of neighboring rooms to see what all the noise was about, with more than a few people sloshing beer onto the rug in the process.

Ymir heard footsteps on the stairs and looked up with relief to see a clearly sober Bertholdt looking panicked, a book dangling from his hand.

_Christ. That fucking dweeb’s been upstairs reading._

Ymir knew parties weren’t really Bertholdt’s thing, but he had seriously gone from sucking his boyfriend’s face in a pantry to reading?! She was pretty sure he had this whole party thing backwards in terms of how the night was supposed to begin and end.

Swallowing any bitchy comment she might have made, she took the opportunity to yell at Bert as Reiner practically tackled him; “Jesus fuck, don’t you have a fucking leash for that thing!?”

Reiner paused from where he was already nuzzling Bertholdt lovingly to shoot a glare Ymir’s way, sticking his tongue out like six foot toddler on steroids. “Yer one to talk, callin’ me a dog when you’ve been chewin’ m’ balls off fer the past hour. Bertholdt, she’s being so meeeean to meee.”

“Only because you’re acting like an annoying fucking idiot, and you’re too wasted to tell your ass from your face. Not that any of us could either.”

“SHIT, BURN!” Jean shouted grinning from across the room like the douchebag that he was, now draped heavily over Marco’s shoulders.

Reiner pouted up at his boyfriend as beads of sweat began to form at Bertholdt’s temples --poor kid was never very good at handling confrontation-- and seeing that he was receiving no sympathy from that end of the line, sulked over to a bemused Krista for support. Stooping to toss his arms around her neck from behind, he sighed deeply and moped into her ear,

“See what a bitch she’s being to me, Kur-sta? ‘Nd I’m being so niiice to her! She’s always like this, sh’ doesn’t appreciate what I do fer her.”

Ymir was definitely feeling the effects of the alcohol on her system now; her vision began to blur and she felt her face grow hot as she listened to Reiner’s petulant whine and saw his hands dwarfing Krista’s delicate frame; before she could think about what she was doing her body moved of its own accord-- the surrounding faces and room blurred as she lunged for the football player’s shoulders. Before anyone could move to stop her, she had wrenched Reiner away from Krista, taken a hold of his shirt and easily knocked him to the ground in his intoxicated state.

She had one knee pressed to his chest as she spat, “What the fuck did you just call me, Braun?! And what exactly is it that you do for me, you prick, I’d be fucking fascinated to know!”

Almost immediately, she felt Bert’s sweaty hands dip under her armpits and begin to pull her off, but not before she managed to land a solid blow on Reiner’s nose, a satisfactory trickle of blood running into his sputtering mouth.

_“Touch her again, asswipe, and you’ll be bleeding from more than just your fucking nose!”_

By this time, a substantial crowd had gathered and was urging the two on excitedly, but Armin and Bertholdt dragged Ymir out of the room before she could do any more damage, leaving Reiner sitting up with a hand clutched to his face and glaring at her accusingly as the three struggled on to the porch. To Ymir’s chagrin, she saw a shocked Krista look after her briefly as she left the room before kneeling down beside the injured boy and quietly doing her best to stop the bleeding.

Armin shooed the remaining guests back into the house, shutting the door behind him as he and Bert shoved Ymir growling into the nearest chair, and forced her to calm down. It wasn’t even close to being the first time this had happened; Ymir tended to get violent when she was drunk, and Reiner was always mouthy and obnoxious, making him a not uncommon punching bag.

What they _hadn’t_ experienced before was such a sudden and dramatic reaction to something Reiner said or done, and as a result Armin was kneeling next to her with an expression of deep concern on his face, while Bert stood off to the side looking ruminative; like he was piecing something together. After they’d all been resting in silence for a few slowly calming minutes, Bertholdt finally sighed and tentatively took the seat next to her, opening his mouth to speak.

“Y-you’d better hope he doesn’t remember this in the morning. Not even I’ll be able to stop him from giving you hell if he finds out.”

Armin started and looked up in surprise at Bertholdt’s astute grasp of the situation, but Ymir had seen it coming. She and Bert had been friends for a long time, and he could read her like a book. She knew exactly what he was referring to.

It wasn’t like she’d been exactly subtle about the jealousy she felt when Reiner was all over Krista; she’d punched the guy out for it, after all. And he was _gay_ , for christsake. And _in a relationship_. In her defense, he was an infuriatingly flirtatious boyfriend, true; but dedicated to Bert’s dick nonetheless. What the hell was wrong with her? Why had she gotten so damn pissed?!

Her face burned with residue anger and embarrassment over the spectacle she’d made of herself in front of the girl she so overwhelmingly –and hopefully still secretly-- liked. Her hair-trigger temper was only so much of an excuse. There was no way she’d be able to adequately explain why she’d gotten so angry and out of control without giving away something about how she felt, and she knew that if _that_ happened Krista would probably get weirded out enough to stop talking to her completely. How could she not? They barely knew each other, and for some reason Ymir found herself thinking of Krista’s face more than she thought about… well, most things. Food and sleep included. Jesus, she was creepy. She could give less of a shit about anyone else’s opinion, but she and Krista had finally been so close to becoming friends! And now of course she’d gone and fucked everything up.

Gentle, sweet Krista, being cool with her acting like a total asshole and picking a fight with the host at his own party? Not likely. Not likely at all.

She growled in frustration and Armin murmured sympathetically, leaning against Ymir’s knee in quiet companionship.

It was only a matter of time anyway, she supposed. They were way too different to get along. Ymir was a massive fuck up and deadbeat, and Krista was valedictorian. Not to mention obviously hella straight. Nah, it was probably good that this happened early, before Ymir fell even harder for her and ended up getting even more hurt… it was just a stupid crush after all, right? A teenage infatuation?

Except Ymir didn’t _get_ stupid crushes. She could never be bothered to care enough about anyone except herself and her family to feel anything more than physical attraction toward someone she barely knew.

(Reiner and Bert were of course included in the family category, which was really more realistic than it was sentimental; they could annoy the shit outta her, but she reluctantly loved them despite their dumb quirks and arguments, and she knew they felt the same about her. Like she said: family.)

Truth be told, she was _distinctly_ _averse_ to caring about anyone more than she had to, _especially_ if she’d barely had a conversation with them.

Until she met Krista.

_Fuck pretenses, I gotta own up. I really fucking liked this chick._

Groaning, she pressed her palms to her face as Bertholdt patted her back sympathetically (albeit a little awkwardly) and Armin frowned up at her from his perch, at least partially aware of what was going through her mind.

“You know, you could always, well, consider apologizing to Reiner,” he said quietly. “I know that’s probably the last thing you wanna do, but it would look good… in front of, you know, anyone you were trying to, ah, impress.”

Ymir just groaned again and buried her face deeper into her hands, mumbling unappreciatively, “Real subtle, pipsqueak.”

“I know, I know. You don’t have to; just think about it,” Armin conceded and waited another beat before continuing, “If you’re okay, I think I’ll go inside and help Krista. You should probably come too, Bertholdt. We might need your assistance, ah, getting Reiner under control.”

Bertholdt noticeably grimaced at the comment, looking away and muttering under his breath, “ _Get him under control._ This isn’t _How to Train Your Dragon_. I don’t know why everyone acts like I need to tame my boyfriend…”

Armin heard his complaint and couldn’t contain a sympathetic giggle. Hooking Bertholdt under the elbow he tugged him up from his seat, teasing, “Come on, Hiccup,” before leading him trudging inside and shutting the door behind them. It shut with an audible click.

 _Yeah, great. Leave me alone. Let me wallow in self-pity and continue life as the tragic social cripple I truly am_.

Looking around dejectedly, Ymir spotted a quarter-full cup of something that was either vodka or water sitting on the railing. Shrugging, she figured either was fine (though the former was better for her current state of mind) and threw it back. She cringed and held back a retch as she realized without a doubt—yep, that was definitely vodka. Crossing her arms and sinking further into her seat, she prepared herself to try –and inevitably fail—to keep herself from thinking of Krista; a room away, delicately mopping the sweat off of Reiner’s forehead and giggling at Armin’s witty comments; looking as perfect as ever as she swayed slightly on her feet, leaning on someone else for support, tugging someone else down to her height to make some bizarre and oddly hilarious comment in their ear.

She’d probably already forgotten all about Ymir in favor of the next mildly entertaining party guest; it wasn’t like the taller girl was particularly special or interesting. The more she thought about it… Krista was just so out of her league, socially as well as romantically, and Ymir really had nothing to offer. She had probably been talking to her out of courtesy; that was the only explanation. The girl was charming enough to make conversation with a tree stump, after all.

Actually… upon reflection, Krista forgetting about her was probably a best case scenario. It was more likely that she was already gossiping with her red-headed friend about what an insufferable idiotic hot head she was, maybe even laughing about her stupid temper tantrum. Not that she could blame her. Although Krista was probably too nice for petty gossip. It wasn’t in her to ridicule… but the alternative was even worse. She was probably murmuring to her friend sympathetically about the troubled delinquent and her emotional issues… she probably found it in her big, open heart to pity her. And there was nothing Ymir could possibly hate more.

She felt her fists clench and her heart rate increase as her train of thought barreled painfully ahead, but she took a ragged breath and forced herself to calm down, tensely grabbing another cup from off the floor to her side and chugging it, cringing at the taste of cheap beer. It was a miracle she had an iron stomach, because she was sure as hell going to regret this in the morning.

She let her eyes slip closed as she reached up to rub her temples, just feeling the vibration of alcohol in her system, the pleasant numbness of being drunk. She was so close to reaching that point where she could stop overanalyzing things and torturing herself and acting like a sappy possessive hormonal twat and just let her mind fill with static… it was actually pleasant out, not nearly as cold as nights past. The pea coat Armin had draped over her was enough to keep her plenty warm, and she felt herself finally begin to feel peaceful…

“Ymir?”

She almost jumped out of her skin at the hand she felt on her shoulder, eyes flying open and posture going perfectly stiff as a strangled yelp left her throat.

“Jsheezus Chreings, warn a gurl!”

The words came out significantly more slurred that she’d intended, and she raised an embarrassed hand to her face as she used the other to shove the two empty solo cups out of her lap. She could feel Krista’s eyes on her but opted not to say anything, leaving her face covered until she felt a small warmth settle in next to her and a gentle hand pry her own from across her eyes. She couldn’t prevent the flush that crept into her cheeks as she realized that Krista didn’t intend to let go, carefully making sure to look anywhere but at the smaller girl now holding Ymir’s hand sweetly in her lap. She guessed that Krista was just trying to comfort her, but in reality she couldn’t remember a time that she’d been more flustered.

…Not that that meant she wanted her to let go.

“Ymir, what happened in there? You were fine one second and the next… what did Reiner say to set you off? I get that he can be a little, ah, abrasive. It didn’t take too long to figure that out. But he really wasn’t bothering me, I promise, so I hope you didn’t feel like you had to defend me or anything. Despite appearances, I can take care of myself.”

“No! t’snot what I-- I know—I, ugh. Okay.” Gathering her courage, Ymir slowly turned to look at the girl next to her, raising her hazel eyes carefully to meet Krista’s own blue, begging her voice to cooperate with what she wanted to say. She had to make this tactful, and carefully thought-out, and not too forward lest she—

“I really care about you.”

Oh my god. There was no fucking way that had just come out of her mouth. No. Fucking. Way. She had most definitely not meant to say it... that _way_. That painfully obvious, inarticulate way. Mortified, Ymir acted on instinct—she buried her bright red face into Krista’s shoulder, terrified to see the reaction on the smaller girl’s face, before realizing that this new position was probably a million times more awkward.

Well, she figured, there was no going back now.

For what seemed like an eternity, beautiful and tense, neither of the two moved. They stayed in the same immobile position for a strange and frozen couple of minutes, completely still in each other’s company, before Krista’s shattered the hush to settle her face comfortably in Ymir’s hair. She could have sworn she felt the upward turn of Krista’s lips as she murmured a quiet and easy thank you into the hair tucked just above Ymir’s ear.

Despite her best efforts, the taller girl’s alcohol-heavy eyelids fluttered closed against her will into the crook between Krista’s neck and shoulder, powerless against the comforting scent of cinnamon and laundry detergent that seemed to exist nestled into Krista’s skin.

Ymir's second to last thought, before dozing off, was that she couldn’t remember the last time she had fallen asleep on someone’s shoulder. Looking back into her memories of the past two years without her dad, she couldn’t remember the last time she had let herself be vulnerable.

And her very last thought, flickering briefly through her mind before she slipped from consciousness, was that Krista had yet to let go of her hand.

* * *

 

Ymir woke up to a toe jabbing painfully in her side, and Jean’s shitty persistent voice nagging her to get up and join the living. Or maybe he’d said join the cleaning committee. She barely registered what he was saying; she was sprawled out on the ground next to the couch with a blanket thrown over her and one cheek pressed to the rug. She wondered briefly how she’d gotten there and who’d covered her when she noticed a strange weight on her face. Stretching her jaw experimentally, she registered that there was most definitely something solid settled snugly onto the upturned side of her profile, plastic and slightly sticky with sweat. Reaching up to investigate, she realized it was her phone.

_How the hell did that get there?_

Curiously, she flipped it open. There, evident against the glow of the green backdrop, was the most beautiful arrangement of letters and numbers she’d ever seen, organized into square opaquely black font:

 

**Edit:**

**New Contact: Krista Lenz ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ**

**Number: 404-658-4876**

 

Even as she rolled over to grab Jean’s ankle and wrench him to the ground for disturbing her slumber; even as she was forced to cater to Reiner’s shiner with conciliatory words and frozen peas; even as she made her painful way into the bathroom to puke her guts out; even as she downed four Advil to alleviate the killer migraine she was nursing:

Ymir spent that entire shitty morning grinning like an idiot.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first attempt at writing fan fiction, but there can never be enough Yumikuri so I figured I'd give it a shot. The only way I can stay sane is by living in a world where all my ships are cannon and babies are alive. I don't have a beta, so sorry for any errors! The squad leaders won't be introduced till later, and I promise once Krista gets more involved it'll start to get exciting. Smut in the future mehbe? We'll see. ( *coughs* definitely smut in the future. stick around. do it for the SMUT.)
> 
> Talk to me at fujiokunt.tumblr.com! It can pretty raunchy up in that biz, so be warned.


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